The Canadian Novel and a New Kind of Nation: Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, and Beyond

The Canadian novel has attained worldwide stature with Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize and Margaret Atwood’s fame. Alongside them are writers in English and French from a variety of national origins and backgrounds, and from Canada’s vast and diverse terrain. With settings that include metropolitan Montreal and Toronto, the rugged inlets of Newfoundland, the prairies of Saskatchewan, and the westernmost province of British Columbia, these novels together tell the story of how Canada became a new kind of nation: one without a preexisting idea, one that blends the practical and mysterious, and one that has evolved into a thriving multiethnic society. Readings will include Alice Munro, The Moons of Jupiter;
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace;
Robertson Davies, Fifth Business;
Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers;
Michael Crummey, Sweetland;
Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Last Crossing;
Larissa Lai, When Fox Is a Thousand;
Joseph Boyden, The Orenda;
Rawi Hage, Cockroach;
and Roch Carrier, La Guerre, Yes Sir!